Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Congratulations to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who was named the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize laureate this morning for his efforts to end the long civil war in his country. The award comes shortly after a referendum on the peace agreement in Colombia failed by a slim margin among voters, but the members of the prize committee remained optimistic and expressed their hopes that the peace negotiations would continue toward an agreeable resolution for all parties involved.
Some critics have argued that because such an agreement has not yet been secured and ratified, the Peace Prize award is premature. This same argument has accompanied announcements in many previous years as well. It’s worth recalling that in an 1893 letter, Bertha von Suttner argued with Alfred Nobel over the nature of the yet-to-be-established peace prize after they had discussed the idea together in Zurich. She, too, saw the award not as a contest to be won or as recognition for a particular achievement but as a means of supporting and assisting ongoing efforts to establish a more just and peaceful word. She wrote, “What people who work for peace need most of all is not prizes. They need the means to allow them to work.”
Outside the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, on the morning of the 2016 Peace Prize announcement
In his will, Nobel advised that the peace prize should be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” President Santos represents the peace-seeking idealism at the heart of Nobel’s bequest, especially as he works toward the dissolution and disarmament of rebel armies within his country.
As Santos and the psychologist Steven Pinker pointed out in an op-ed piece this past summer (see my previous post here), should he and his fellow Colombians succeed in their efforts to secure peace in their country, they will have brought an end to the last remaining armed conflict in the western hemisphere. They wrote, “Progress toward peace moves slowly and uncertainly, but it is propelled by determination, ingenuity and the will of millions — and by the realization that peace is not a utopian ideal but an eminently attainable outcome.”
Here’s hoping that this year’s Peace Prize will guide Colombia and all of the Americas toward that outcome.
Peace at Last 